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Hi,
Thanks for the reply; I have seen on a few occasions some people with post-nominal's CEng and IEng.
I thought that maybe they are technologists in the implementation of certain technologies (i.e. Mechanical implementation [pumps, chillers, etc.]) but are design leaders in a different field (Electrical Engineering).
Steve

The guidance that I have received from Engineering Council is that it is possible to be in both the IEng & CEng sections of the professional register. However each has an annual maintenance fee so you would have to pay twice.

For members of several institutions one licenced body holds the registration and pays Engineering Council, so using a different body for each section of the register becomes complicated. A registration may be transferred to a different body, but the IET only allows this following its own checks.

It would be pleasing to see that an IEng wanted to keep this registration despite achieving CEng because it represents a statement of something different, such as "practicality". However the process has always been promoted in a way that assumes gaining CEng subsumes IEng. This assumption isn't very helpful to senior IEng registrants who gained acceptance from Engineering Council at one time for the slogan "equal but different". It is also supports the concept that education is of much higher value than experience. Many excellent CEng registrants will not have met the IEng standard.

Perhaps Engineering Council will consider as part of its campaign to revitalise IEng, waiving the second fee for an IEng transferring to CEng and wanting to maintain IEng.

I am not keen on the "discipline specific" argument like "mechanically I'm IEng and electrically I'm CEng". Where do you draw these distinction lines? The IET embraces a very wide range of narrow, multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary practice.

Thanks for your reply; I agree with your last statement regarding "discipline specific" registration, I included that only as an example, it was just to illustrate the point.
I believe that if you achieve IEng you should keep this even if you undertake the CEng and I am happy that the Engineering council allows this practice.

I had ambition in aquiring a string of registrations letters after my name (EngTech, IEng and CEng) and even managed to gain memberships of a number of organisations. But being older and wiser I realise now it was only to satisfy my ego and lack of self confidence.

The reality is this. In the UK, engineering and technology industries don't require engineers to be validated by their peers (IET, IMechE, EC) for the purposes of appointment or promotion. They are quite capable of determining the best engineer for the job.

To emphasis, in my previous employement, I worked in a division of 200 staff, of which one member was a CEng. We were doing different roles, but were on the same salary grade. I worked at graduate level, but wasn't registered with the EC. In the end it mattered nowt to the employer who had a string of letters after their name and who didn't.

My advise is, unless someone is a serious world class engineer with the reputation to go with it and can command their own pay award, it's a waste of time and money spent on gaining memberships and registrations. A BSc degree can only go so far, until the person starts looking silly with a whole host of letters after their name when doing the same job as others without registration.

Achieveing academic success through exam passes is much better than getting memberships of various clubs.

I'd fully agree, with one slight caveat. There are a few industries (for example in my case railway signalling) where, just occasionally, it helps answer the question of "where is your evidence that your staff are professional?" Now most of us know, including the assessor that's looking for this evidence, that it's only another tiny fragment of the picture - but it's so hard "proving" that an engineer is professional that every little helps.

But it would make it a lot more valid if there was genuine tracking of continuing competence (perhaps reassessment).

Oh, and it would be great to see IEng/CEng withdrawn for acts of gross arrogance and inability to take a measured, impartial and, above all, polite and respectful approach Now why should browsing these forums make me think that (Not this thread I hasten to add!!)

As I have said before, IEng is of no value to an individual as it marks you out as a failed CEng.

Although you are entitled to your opinion I can not understand the logic behind that statement for the majority of IEng registered engineers.

Someone has only failed to obtain CEng if they have applied for it and deemed not to have met the standard. Although I don't know the statistics, i would imagine that the majority of IEng have probably never applied for CEng so cannot then be labelled as a failed CEng.

I am aware that in some instances those that apply for CEng and don't meet the requirements can be offered IEng if they satisfy the criteria, although I doubt even they would take too kindly to being labelled a failed CEng.

There are a few industries (for example in my case railway signalling) where, just occasionally, it helps answer the question of "where is your evidence that your staff are professional?"

I think that the assessor would rely on licensing award by the IRSE rather than the broader UKSpec competency framework.

Not necessarily, it depends what you are doing. Maybe you have to trust me on this, I help run an engineering design team which is very(!) well known in the rail signalling world: we have one IRSE member and no IRSE licensed engineers. It's just not relevant to product design, even SIL4 signalling equipment.

More to the point of this discussion, IRSE licensing is a certification of a particular skill set, not a level of general professionalism: which is what IEng and CEng are.

Originally posted by: pmiller2006As I have said before, IEng is of no value to an individual as it marks you out as a failed CEng.

In the same sense that a solicitor is a failed barrister, a GP is a failed surgeon, a school teacher is a failed university lecturer, a counsellor is a failed priest?
Just because we're not all Stephen Hawking does not mean we're all failures! We're just doing different jobs.

Originally posted by: pmiller2006What I am saying is that the IEng qualification is not distinctive.

I would disagree. I don't find it hard to identify those I roles around me which require "CEng" competencies and those which require "IEng" competentcies. And it's not a seniority thing, both Directors on my site could register as IEng but not CEng.

It is not a requirement of engineering technology roles, it is very rare to see IEng engineering job advertisements. There is very little understanding of IEng even in large engineering companies (i.e. I saw a presentation by BAE which said IEng was not even on the radar in terms of professional competency).

Now this is very true. And you could certainly debate whether there is a need for a formal recognition of IEng status if industry so clearly doesn't think so. But then it's pretty true for CEng too except in a real minority of cases.

The examples you quote are distinct professional roles with distinctive qualification and regulation requirements

Exactly. And I see IEng and CEng just like this. It would be unlikely that I would recruit an IEng to do a CEng's job or vice versa.

Originally posted by: amillarI would disagree. I don't find it hard to identify those I roles around me which require "CEng" competencies and those which require "IEng" competentcies. And it's not a seniority thing, both Directors on my site could register as IEng but not CEng.

This could be worth understanding, especially by the EC who seem to have issues with trying to present the two status's as distinctive from each other.

Please, what are these roles and what makes the two status's distinctive from each other, in your opinion?

My interpretation is that there is no distinction apart from the IEng competency descriptors being weaker than the CEng. If IEng were geared to operational roles and CEng to design I would understand, but that is not the case.

I wouldn't use the word "weaker", rather I'd say "different". Engineers who use their knowledge to apply existing and emerging technology are just as valuable as those who use their knowledge to optimise it. The first is IEng, the second CEng - (just one example).

Originally posted by: pmiller2006If IEng were geared to operational roles and CEng to design I would understand, but that is not the case.

My understanding is that is pretty much the case (although innovation would perhaps be a better word than design), David has (as ever) described it very neatly here.

Looking at UKSpec I think this is reasonably clear, CEng is described as "Chartered Engineers are characterised by their ability to develop appropriate solutions to engineering problems, using new or existing technologies, through innovation, creativity and change." (my emphasis)

IEng is "Incorporated Engineers maintain and manage applications of current and developing technology, and may undertake engineering design, development, manufacture, construction and operation."

I don't see a suggestion there that IEng is a trainee CEng.

I've just thought of a nice example. When we produce a new safety-critical product there are two distinct process going on: design and validation. Design (in our case) tends to be quite a "blue sky" process, we are coming up with completely new innovative solutions to solve new problems. Validation is carrying out a highly rigourous and professional evaluation of the design. Both activities are carried out at the same engineering "level": the Validation Lead Engineer is at the same level (and has to be at the same level) as the Design Lead Engineer. The design team will be CEngs (or would be if they could be bothered to apply), the validation team will be IEngs (or would be if they could be bothered to apply). It's only one example of how we divide the work up, but probably the clearest one.

Beyond that, best thing is to study Belbin team roles which explains nicely why you need different skills sets in a well-rounded team.

Meanwhile I will carry on being perfectly comfortable in being good at creative thinking and less good at methodical implementation. And thoroughly enjoying forming effective teams with others with complementary skills. (Apologies for the dreadful mangement speak sentence but haven't got time right now to put it more nicely like.)

Yes I do, but in the real world I'm not sure why they'd bother. If IEng became more widely recognised it could be appropriate; but since at the moment CEng seems to be the only one anyone cares about, and even then not that much, I think you would have to be pretty determined to collect lettuce after your name to bother.

PERSONALLY, as I suggested above, I think engineers typically fit better into the IEng "mindset" or the CEng, but I'm sure many others would disagree and say we should all be able to anything equally well if we are professional engineers. (Again personally, this thought scares me rigid, since I think a mark of professionalism is knowing where your weaknesses are as well as your strengths.)

As I've mentioned before, I used to be IEng, which, frankly I did use as a steppign stone to CEng (although I don't know if it actually helped). But I think it is more useful to see them as identifying different skills and approaches, and my understanding is that is the EC's aim.

At the end of all this, neither CEng or IEng qualify you to do anything, neither tell you more than your CV does, it's really just a validation mark on your CV. I think most of us would just say that it does give us a warm feeling that our peers think we're doing a good job. I think the best thing is not to get too hung up about it, the rather more important thing for most of us these days is whether anyone wants to employ us

Originally posted by: pmiller2006As I have said before, IEng is of no value to an individual as it marks you out as a failed CEng.

IEng is not a professional qualification, but a professional title similar to OBE or honorary Degree.

IEng does not have anything to do with success or failure. An employer may look for entirely different set of competence requirements than the IET.

The only reason why you should feel IEng represents failure compared to CEng is because you are impressed more by CEng than IEng. And it says something about you more than the IEng title.

As I said before I was paid the same salary as a colleague of mine who is a CEng. As you know I am not registered with the EC.

At the end of the day, it's not about getting CEng, IEng or nothing at all, but it's all to do with having the ability to do the job. Most companies don't give a monkeys about your registration.

Try and think independently to the views of the IET and EC. They are not really incharge of deciding who is a professional engineer and who isn't. Only the individual through their ability can decide that for themselves.

Originally posted by: amillarI'd fully agree, with one slight caveat. There are a few industries (for example in my case railway signalling) where, just occasionally, it helps answer the question of "where is your evidence that your staff are professional?"

That's fair enough, but I would then reply to such question with: We can provide you with staff who have or can obtain professional registration, provided the employer's prepared to pay the IET and EC registration costs. After all if you require professionally registered engineers, you're going to have to pay for it, or pay higher wages.